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Quattrocentisterla 


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Maurice Hewlett 
Author of 

^'‘Richard Yea and Ned''" 


Philadelphia 

Henry Altemus Company 






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QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


“Death, why hast thou made life so hard to bear, 
Taking my lady hence? Hast thou no whit 
Of shame? The youngest flower and the most 
fair 

Thou hast plucked away, and the world want- 
eth it. 

0 leaden Death, hast thou no pitying? 

Our warm love’s very spring 

Thou stopp’st, and endest what was holy and 
meet; 

And of my gladdening 
Mak’st a most woful thing. 

And in my heart dost bid the bird not sing 
That sang so sweet. 

“Had I my will, beloved, I would say 
To God, unto whose bidding all things bow, 
That we were still together night and day: 

Yet be it done as His behests allow. 

1 do remember that while she remain’d 

With me, she often called me her sweet friend; 
But does not now, 

Because God drew her towards Him, in the end. 
Lady, that peace which none but He can send 
Be thine. Even so.” 

GIACOMINO PUGLIESI 

(Z>. G. Rossetti.) 


2 


FOREWORD 


I N the espisode of Sandro Botticelli and 
La Bella Simonetta, we find a verit- 
able little masterpiece in prose. 

How slightly tinged by realism is the 
story! Presumably there is no basis of 
fact in the meeting of the great artist and 
this fair child-woman of the Renaissance. 
Tradition affirms somewhat of one ex- 
quisite figure dominant in Botticelli’s por- 
traiture ; likewise there remain Lorenzo’s 
words concerning the beloved of Giuliano 
de Medici. Moreover Poliziano and the 
courtly crew of poets strewed her youth- 
ful hearse with laments of no enduring 
verity. — gone, all of it, and they fallen 
forever silent. 


5 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


She indeed remains, the beautiful Simon- 
etta Vespucci; for ’tis the glory of Art 
that nothing it touches is disannulled or 
lost. She lives, even as the immortal 
women of Boccaccio live, though heart 
and brain alike are dust. And thus for 
ages dead and ages yet to come, Botticelli 
raised up a woman’s fading flower-like 
face, and this we see to-day in his solemn 
vision of a fadeless Spring. 


6 


PROEM 


Y OU, tall Ligurian Simonetta, loved of 
Sandro, mourned by Giuliano and, 
for a season, by his twisted brother 
and lord, have I done well to utter but one 
side of your wild humor? The side a man 
would take, struck, as your Sandro was, by 
a nympholepsy, or, as Lorenzo wa«, by the 
rhymer’s appetite for wherewithal to son- 
netteer? If I read your story, it was never 
pique or a young girl’s petulance drove you 
to Phryne’s one justifiable act of self-asser- 
tion. It was honesty. Madonna, or I have 
read your grey eyes in vain; it was en- 
thusiasm — that flame of our fire so sacred 
that though it play the incendiary there shall 
be no crime' — or where would be now the 
''Vas d'elezione ”? — nor though it reveal a 


7 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


bystander’s grin, any shame at all. I shall 
live to tell that story of ithine, Lady Simon- 
etta, to thy honor and my own respect; 
for, as the poet says, 

“There is no holier flame 
Than flutters torchwise in a stripling heart. 
Revealing mystery all about, and light 
Blinding white, rapturous — a fire from Heaven 
To ash the clay of us, and wing the God 
Armed for the freeing of a world in chains.” 

I have seen all memorials of you left be- 
hind to be pondered by your Dante, Sandro 
the painting poet, — the proud clearness of 
you as at the marriage feast of Nastagio 
degli-Onesti ; the melting of the sorrow that 
wells from you in a tide, where you hold the 
book of your overmastering honor and 
read Magnificat Anima Mea with a sob in 
your throat ; your acquaintance, too, with 
that grief which was your own hardening; 


8 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


your sojourn, wan and woebegone as would 
become the wife of Moses (maker of jeal- 
ous gods) ; all these guises of you, as well 
as the presentments of your innocent youth, 
’ I have seen and adored. But I have ever 
loved you most where you stand a wistful 
Venus Anadyomene — '‘Una donzella non 
con uman volto'^ ; for I know your heart. 
Madonna, and see on the sharp ed'ge of your 
threatened life. Ardor look back to maiden 
Reclusion, and on (with a pang of forebod- 
ing) to mockery and evil judgment. Never 
fear but I brave your story out to the world 
ere many days. And if any, with profane 
leer and tongue in the cheek, take your 
sorrow for reproach or your pitifulness for 
a shame, let them receive the lash of the 
whip from one who will trouble to wield it : 
non ragioniam di lor. 


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QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


HOW SANDRO BOTTICELLI SAW SIMONETTA IN 
THE SPRING 

I 

U P at Fiesole, among the olives and 
chestnuts which cloud the steeps, 
the magnificent Lorenzo was enter- 
taining his guests on a morning in April. 
The olives were just whitening to silver; 
they stretched in a trembling sea down the 
slope. Beyond lay Florence, misty and 
golden; and round about were the mossy 
hills, cut sharp and definite against a grey- 
blue sky, printed with starry buildings and 
sober ranks of cypress. The sun catching 


II 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

the mosaics of San Miniato and the brazen 
cross on the facade, madte them shine like 
sword -blades in the quiver of the beat be- 
tween. For the valley was just a lake of hot 
air, hot and murky — “fever weather,” said 
the people in the streets — with a glaring 
summer sun let in between two long spells 
of fog. ’Twas unnatural at that season, 
via; but the blessed Saints sent the weather 
and one could only be careful what one was 
about at sun-down. 

Up at the Villa ,with brisk morning airs 
rustling overhead, in the cool shades of trees 
and lawns, it was pleasant to lie still, watch- 
ing these things, while a silky young ex- 
quisite sang to his lute a not too audacious 
ballad about Selvaggia, or Becchina and the 
saucy Prior of Sant’ Onofrio. He sang 
well too, that dark-eyed boy ; the girl at 
whose feet he was crouched was laughing 


12 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


and blushing at once; and, being very fair, 
she blushed hotly. She dared not raise her 
eyes to look into his, and he knew it and 
was quietly measuring his strength — it was 
quite a comiedy! At each wanton refrain 
he lowered his voice to a whisper and bent a 
little forward. And the girl’s laughter be- 
came hysterical;' she was shaking with the 
effort to control herself. At last she looked 
up with a sort of sob in her breath and saw 
his mocking smile and the gleam of the 
wild beast in his eyes. She grew white, 
rose hastily and turned away to join a group 
of ladies sitting apart. A man with a heavy, 
rather sullen face and a bush Of yellow hair 
falling over his forehead in a wave was 
standing aside watching all this. He folded 
his arms and scowled under his big brows ; 
and when the girl moved away his eyes fol- 
lowed her. 


13 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


The lad ended his song in a broad sarcasm 
amid bursts of laughter and applause. The 
Magnificent, sitting in his carved chair, 
nursed his sallow face and smiled approval. 
“By brother boasts his invulnerability,” he 
said, turning to his neighbour, “let him look 
to it. Messer Cupido will have him yet. Al- 
ready, we can see, he has been let into 
some of the secrets of the bower.” The 
man bowed and smiled deferentially. “Sig- 
nor Giuliano has all the qualities to win the 
love of ladies, and to retain it. Doubtless 
he awaits his destiny. The Wise Man has 
said that “Beauty. . . ” The young poet 

enlarged on his text with some fire in his 
thin cheeks, while the company kept very 
silent. It was much to their liking; even 
Giuliano was absorbed ; he sat on the 
ground clasping one knee between his 
hands, smiling upwards into vacancy, as a 


14 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


man does whose imagination is touched. 
Lorenzo nursed his sallow face and beat 
time to the orator’s cadences with his foot; 
he, too, was abstracted and smiling. At the 
end he spoke : “Our Marsilio himself has 
never said nobler words, my Agnolo. The 
mantle of the Attic prophet has descended 
indeed upon this Florence. And Beauty, as 
thou sayest, is from heaven. But where shall 
it be found here below, and how discerned ?” 
The man of the heavy jowl was standing 
with folded arms, looking from, under his 
brows at the group of girls. Lorenzo saw 
everything; he noticed him. “Our Sandro 
will tell us it is yonder. The Star of Genoa 
shines over Florence and our poor little con- 
stellations are gone out. Ecco, my Sandro, 
gravest and hardiest of painters, go sum- 
mon Madonna Simonetta and her hand- 
maidens to our Symposium. Agnolo will 


IS 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


speak further to us of this sovereignty of 
Beauty.” 

The painter bowed his head and moved 
away. 

A green alley vaulted with thick ilex and 
myrtle formed a tapering vista where the 
shadows lay misty blue and pale shafts of 
light pierced through fitfully. At the far 
end it ran out into an open space and a 
splash of sunshine. A marble Ganymede with 
lifted arms rose in the middle like a white 
flame. The girls were there, intent upon 
some commerce of their own, flashing 
hither and thither over the grass in a 
flutter of saffron and green and crimson 
Simonetta — Sandro could see — was a little 
apart, a very tall, isolated figure, clear and 
cold in a recess of shade standing easily, 
resting on one hip with her hands behind 
her. A soft, straight robe of white clipped 


t6 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


her close from shoulder to heel ; the lines of 
her figure were thrust forward by her poise. 
His eyes followed the swell of her bosom, 
very gentle and girlish, and the long folds 
of her dress falling thence 'to her knee. 
While she stood there, proud and remote, a 
chance beam of the sun shone on her head so 
that it seemed to burn. “Heaven salutes the 
Queen of Heaven, — Venus Urania !” With 
an odd impulse he stopped, crossed himself, 
and then hurried on. 

He told his errand to her; having no 
eyes for the others. 

“Signorina — I am to acquaint her Seren- 
ity that the divine poet Messer Agnolo is to 
speak of the sovereign power of beauty ; of 
the Heavenly Beauty whereof Plato taught, 
as it is believed.” 

Simonetta arched a slim' neck and looked 
down at the obsequious speaker, or at least 


17 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


he thought so. And he saw how fair she 
was, a creature how delicate and gracious, 
with grey eyes frank and wide, and full 
red lips where a smile (nervous and a little 
wistful, he judged, rather than defiant) 
seemed always to hover. Such clear-cut, 
high beauty made him ashamed; but her 
coloring (for he was a painter) made his 
heart beat. She was no ice-bound shadow 
of deity then ! but flesh and blood ; a girl — a 
child, of timid, soft contours, of warm roses 
and blue veins laced in a pearly skin. And 
she was crowned with a heavy wealth of 
red-gold hair, twisted in great coils, bound 
about with pearls, and smouldering like 
molten metal where it fell rippling along 
her neck. She dazzled him, so that he 
could not face her or look further. His eyes 
dropped. He stood before her moody, dis- 
concerted. 


i8 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


The girls, who had! dissolved their com- 
pany at his approach, listened to what he 
had to say linked in knots of twos and 
threes. They needed no excuses to return ; 
some were philosophers in their way, 
philosophers and poetesses; some had left 
their lovers in the ring round Lorenzo. So 
they went down the green alley still locked 
by the arms, by the waist or shoulders. They 
did not wait for Simonetta. She was a 
Genoese, and proud as the snow. Why did 
Giuliano love her? Did he love her, indeed? 
He was bewitched then, for she was cold, 
and a brazen creature in spite of it. How 
dare she bare her neck so! Oh! ’twas 
Genoese. “Uomini senza fede e donne sen- 
za vergogna,” they quoted as they ran. 

And Simonetta walked alone down the 
way with her head high ; but Sandro stepped 


19 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

behind, at the edge of her trailing white 
robe. 

. The poet was leaning against 
an ancient alabaster vase^ soil-stained, yel- 
low with age and its long sojourn in the 
loam, but with traces of its carved garlands 
clinging to it still. He fingered it lovingly as 
he talked. His oration was concluding, and 
his voice rose high and tremulous; there 
were sparks in his hollow eyes. 

“And as this sovereign Beauty is queen of 
herself, so she is subject to none other, owns 
to no constraining custom, fears no reproach 
of man. What she wills, that has the force 
of a law. Being Beauty, her deeds are 
lovely and worshipful. Therefore Phryne 
whom men, groping in darkness and the dull 
ways of earth, dubbed courtesan, shone in a 
Court of Law before the assembled nobles 
of Athens, naked and undismayed in the 


20 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

blaze of her fairness. And Athens dis- 
cerned the goddess and trembled. Yes, and 
more ; even as Aphrodite, whose darling she 
was, arose pure from the foam, so she too 
came up out of the sea in the presence of a 
host, and the Athenians, seeing no shame, 
thought none, but, rather, reverenced her 
the more. For what shame is it that the 
body of one so radiant in clear perfections 
should be revealed? Is then the garment 
of the soul, her very mould and image, so 
shameful ? Shall we seek to know her 
essence by the garment of a garment, or 
hope to behold that whidh really is in the 
s/hadows we cast upon shadows? Shame 
is of the brute dullard who thinks shame. 
The evil ever sees Evil glaring at him. 
Plato, the golden-mouthed, with the soul 
ot pure fire, has said the truth of this matter 
in his De Repuhlica. the fifth book, where 


21 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


he speaks of young maids sharing the exer- 
cise of the Palaestra, yea, and the Olympic 
contests even ! For he says, ‘Let the wives 
of our wardens bare themiselves, for their 
virtue will be a robe ; and let them share the 
toils of war and defend their country. And 
for the man who laughs at naked women 
exercising their bodies for high reasons, his 
laughter is a fruit of unripe wisdom, and he 
himself knows not what he is about ; for 
that is ever the best of sayings that the use- 
ful is the noble and the hurtful tihe base.^ 

ty 

There was a pause. The name of Plato 
had had a strange effect upon the company. 
You would have said they had suddenly 
entered a church and had felt all lighter in- 
terests sink under the weight of the dim, 
echoing nave. After a few moments the poet 
spoke again in a quieter tone, but his voice 


22 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


had lost none of the unction which had en- 
riched it 

“Beauty is queen : by the virtue of Deity, 
whose image she is, she reigns, lifts up, 
fires. Let us beware how we tempt Deity lest 
we perish ourselves. Actaeon died when he 
gazed unbidden upon the pure body of Ar • 
temis ; but Artemis herself rayed her splen- 
dor upon Endymion, and Endymion is 
among the immortals. We fall when we 
rashly confront Beauty, but that Beauty 
who comes unawares may nerve our souls 
to wing to heaven.” He ended on a resonant 
note, and then, still looking out over the 
vallev, sank into his seat. Lorenzo, with a 
fine humility, got up and kissed his thin 
hand. Giuliano looked at Simonetta, trying 
to recall her gaze, but she remained stand- 
ing in her place, seeing nothing of her com- 
panions. She was thinking of something. 


23 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


frowning a little and biting her lip, her 
hands were before her; her slim fingers 
twisted and locked themselves nervously, 
like a tangle of snakes. Then she tossed 
her head, as a young horse might, and 
looked at Giuliano suddenly, full in the 
eyes. He rose to meet her with a deprecat- 
ing smile, cap in hand — but she walked 
past him, almost brushing him with her 
gown, but never flinching her full gaze, 
threaded her way through the group to the 
back, behind the poet, where Sandro was. 
He had seen her coming, indeed he had 
watched her furtively throughout the ora- 
tion, but her near presence disconcerted him 
again — and he looked down. She was 
strongly excited with her quick resolution; 
her color had risen and her voice faltered 
when she began to speak. She spoke eagerly, 
running her words together. 


24 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


'^Ecco, Messer Sandro,” she whispered 
blushing. “You have heard these sayings. 

. Who is there in Florence like 

me?” 

“There is no one,” said Sandro simply. 

“I will be your Lady Venus,” she went 
on breathlessly. “You shall paint me, rising 
from the sea- foam. . . . The Genoese 

love the sea.” She was still eager and de- 
fiant ; her bosom rose and fell unchecked. 

“The Signorina is mocking me ; it is im- 
possible ; the Signorina knows it.” 

“Eh, Madonna! is it so shameful to be 
fair — Star of the Sea as your poets sing at 
evening? Do you mean that I dhre not do 
it ? Listen then. Signor Pittore ; to-morrow 
morning at mass-time you will come to the 
Villa Vespucci with your brushes and pans 
and you will ask for Monna Simonetta. 
Then you will see. Leave it now; it is 


25 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

settled.” And she walked away with her 
head high and the same superb smile on her 
red lips. Mockery ! She was in dead earnest ; 
all her child’s feelings were in hot revolt. 
These women who had whispered to each 
other, sniggered at her dress, her white 
neck and her free carriage; Giuliano who 
had presumed so upon her candor — these 
prying, censorious Florentines — she would 
strike them dumb with her amazing loveli- 
ness. They sang her a goddess that she 
might be flattered and suffer their company : 
she would show herself a goddess indeed — 
the star of her shining Genoa, where men 
were brave and silent and maidens frank 
like the sea. Yes, and then she would with- 
draw herself suddenly and leave them for- 
lorn and dismayed. 

As for Sandro, he stood where she had 
left him, peering after her with a mist in 


26 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


his eyes. He seemed to be looking over the 
hill-side, over the city, glowing afar off 
gold and purple in the hot air, to Mont’ 
Oliveto and the heighta, where a line of 
black cypresses stood about a low white 
building. At one angle of the building was 
a little turret with a belvedere of round 
arches. The tallest cypress just topped the 
windows. There his eyes seemed to rest. 


II 

At mass-time Sandro, folded in his shabby 
green cloak, stepped into the sun on the 
Ponte Vecchio. The morning mists were 
rolling back under the heat; you began to 


27 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


see the yellow line of houses stretching 
along the turbid river on the far side, and 
frowning down upon it with blank, mud- 
stained faces. Above, through steaming 
air, the sky showed faintly blue and a 
campanile to the right loomed pale and un- 
certain like a ghost. The sound of innum- 
erable bells floated over the still city. 
Hardly a soul was abroad ; here and there a 
couple of dusty peasants were trudging in 
with baskets of eggs and jars of milk and 
oil ; a boat passed down to the fishing, and 
the oar knocked sleepily in the rowlock as 
she cleared the bridge. And above, on the 
heights of Mont’ Oliveto, the tapering 
forms of cypresses were faintly outlined — 
straight bars of shadow — and the level ridge 
of a roof ran lightly back into the soft 
shroud. 

Sandro could mark these things as he 


28 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


stepped resolutely on to the bridge, crossed 
it, and went up a narrow street among the 
sleeping houses. The day held golden 
promise ; it was the day of his life ! Mean- 
time the mist clung to him and nipped him ; 
what had fate in store? What was to be 
the issue? In the Piazzo Santo Spirito, 
grey and hollow-sounding in the chilly 
silences, his own footsteps echoed solemnly 
as he passed by the door of the great ragged 
church. Through the heavy darkness with- 
in lights flickered faintly and went; service 
was not begun. A drab crew of cripples 
lounged on the steps yawning and shiver- 
ing, and two country girls were strolling 
to the mass with brown arms round each 
others' waists. When Sandro’s footfall 
clattered on the stones they stopped by the 
door looking after him and laughed to see 
his dull face and muffled figure. In the 


29 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


street beyond he heard a bell jingling, hasty, 
incessant ; and soon a white-robed proces- 
sion swept by him, fluttering vestments, 
tapers, and the Host under a canopy, silk 
and gold. Sandro snatched at his cap and 
dropped on his knees in the road, crouching 
low and muttering under his breath as the 
vision went past. He remained kneeling 
for a moment after it had gone, then crossed 
himself — forehead, breast, lip — and hurried 
forward. . . . He stepped under the 

arenway into the Court. There was a youth 
with a cropped head and swarthy neck 
lounging there teasing a spaniel. As the 
steps sounded on the flags he looked up; 
the old green cloak and clumsy shoes of the 
visitor did not interest him; he turned his 
back and went on with his game. Sandro 
accosted him — Was the Signorina at the 
house? The boy went on with his game. 


30 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


'‘Ell, Diavolo! I know nothing at all,” he 
said. 

Sandro raised his voice till it rang round 
the courtyard. “You will go at once and 
inquire. You will say to the Signorina that 
Sandro di Mariano Filipepi the Florentine 
painter is here by her orders ; that he waits 
her pleasure below.” 

The boy had got up ; he and Sandro eyed 
each other for a little space. Sandro was 
the taller and had the glance of a hawk. So 
the porter went. 

Presently with throbbing brows 
he stood on the threshold of Simonetta’s 
chamber. It was the turret room of the 
villa and its four arched windows looked 
through a leafy tracery over towards Flor- 
ence. Sandro could see down below him 
in the haze the glitter of the Arno and the 
dusky dbme of Brunelleschi cleave the sward 


31 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


of the hills like a great burnished bowl. In 
the room itself there was tapestry, the Clem- 
ency of Scipio, with courtiers in golden 
cuirasses and tall plumes, and peacocks 
and huge Flemish horses — a rich profusion 
of crimson and blue drapery and* stout 
limbed soldiery. On a bracket, above a 
green silk curtain, was a silver statuette of 
Madonna and the Bambino Gesu, with a 
red lamp flickering feebly before. By the 
windows a low divan heaped with velvet 
cushions and skins. But for a coffer and a 
prayer desk and a curtained recess which 
enshrined Simonetta’s bed, the room looked 
wind-swept and bare. 

When he entered Simonetta was standing 
by the window leaning her hand against 
the ledge for support. She was draped 
from top to toe in a rose-coloured mantle 
which shrouded her head like a nun’s wim- 


32 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


pie and then fell in heavy folds to the 
ground. She flushed as he came in, but 
saluted him with a grave inclination. 
Neither spoke. The silent greeting, the full 
consciousness in each of their parts, gave a 
curious religious solemnity to the scene — 
like some familiar but stately Church mys- 
tery. Sandro busied himself mechanically 
with his preparations — he was a lover and 
his pulse chaotic, but he had come to paint — 
and when these were done, on tip-toe, as it 
were, he looked timidly about him round the 
room, seeking where to pose her. Then he 
motioned her with the same reverential, pre- 
occupied air, silent still, to a place under the 
silver Madonna. 

. There was a momentary quiver 
of withdrawal. Simonetta blushed vividly 
and dropped her eyes down to her little 
bare foot peeping out below the lines of the 


33 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


rosy cloak. The cloak’s warmth shone on 
her smooth skin, and rayed over her 
cheeks. In her flowery loveliness she 
looked diaphanous, ethereal ; and yet 
you could see what a child she was, with 
her bright audacity, her ardor and her 
wilfulness flushing and paling about her like 
the dawn. There she stood trembling on 
the brink. 

Suddenly all her waywardness shot into 
her eyes ; she lifted her arms and the cloak 
fell back like the shard of a young flower; 
then, delicate and palpitating as a silver 
reed, she stood' up in the soft light of the 
morning, and the sun, slanting in between 
the golden leaves and tendrils, kissed her 
neck and shrinking shoulder. 

Sandro stood facing her, moody and 
troubled, fingering his brushes and bits of 
charcoal; his shaggy brows were knit, he 


34 


quattrocentisteria 


seemed to be breathing hard. He collected 
himself with an effort and looked up at her 
as she stood before him shrinking, awe- 
struck, panting at the thing she had done. 
Their eyes met, and the girl’s distress in- 
creased; she raised her hand to cover her 
bosom ; her breath came in short gasps 
from parted lips, but her wide eyes still 
looked fixedly into his, with such blank panic 
that a sudden movement might really have 
killed her. He saw it all ; s^he ! there at his 
mercy. Tears swam and be trembled. Ah ! 
the gracious lady! what divine condescen- 
sion I what ineffable courtesy ! But the 
artist in him was awakened almost at the 
same moment; his looks wandered in spite 
of her piteous candor and his own noth- 
ingness. Sandro the poet would have fallen 
on his face with an “Exi a me, nam peccator 
sum.” Sandro the painter was different — 


35 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


no mercy there. He made a snatch at a 
carbon and raised his other hand with a kind 
of f'ommand — “Holy Virgin ! what a line ! 
Stay as you are, I implore you : swerve not 
one hair’s breadth and I have you for ever !” 
There was conquest in his voice. 

So Simonetta stood very still, hiding her 
bosom with her hand, but never took her 
watch off the enemy. As he ran blindly 
about doing a hundred urgent indispensable 
things, — noting the lights, the line she made, 
how her arm cut across the folds of the cur- 
tain — she dogged him with staring, fascinat- 
ed eyes, just as a hare, crouching in her 
form, watches a terrier hunting round her 
and waits for the end. 

But the enemy was disarmed. Sandro the 
passionate, the lover, the brooding devotee, 
was gone ; so was la bella Simonetta the be- 
loved, the be-hymned. Instead, here was a 


36 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


fretful painter, dashing lines and broad 
smudges of shade on his paper, while before 
him rose an exquisite, slender, swaying 
form, glistening carnation and silver, and, 
over all, the maddening glow of red-gold 
hair . Could he but catch those velvet shad- 
ows, those delicate, glossy, reflected-lights ! 
Body of Bacchus ! How could he put them 
in ! What a picture she was ! Look at the 
sun on her shoulder ! and her hair — Christ ! 
how it burned! It was a curious moment. 
The girl who had never understood or cared 
to understand this humble lover, guessed 
now that he was lost in the artist. She felt 
that she was simply an effect and she re- 
sented it as a crowning insult. Her color 
rose again, her red lips gathered into a pout. 
If Sandro had but known, she was his at 
that instant. He had but to drop the painter, 
throw down his brushes, set his heart and 


37 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


hot eyes bare — to open his arms and she 
would have fled into them and nestled there ; 
so fierce was her instinct just then to be 
loved, she, who had always been loved ! But 
Sandro knew nothing and cared nothing. 
He was absorbed in the gracious lines of 
her body, the lithe long neck, the drooping 
shoulder, the tenderness of her youth ; and 
then the grand open curve of the hip and 
thigh on which she was poised. He drew 
them in with a free hand in great sweeping 
lines, eagerly, almost angrily ; once or twice 
he broke his carbon and — body of a dog ! — 
he snatched at another. 

This lasted a few minutes only: even .Si- 
monetta, with all her maiden tremors still 
feverishly acute, hardly noticed the flight 
of time ; she was so hot with the feeling of 
her wrongs, the slight upon her victorious 
fairness. Did she not knozv how fair she 


38 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


was ? She was getting very angry ; she had 
been made a fool of. All Florence would 
come and gape at the picture and mock her 
in the streets with bad names and coarse 
gestures as she rode by. She looked at 
Sandro. Santa Maria! how hot he was! 
His hair was drooping over his eyes ! He 
tossed it back every second' ! And his mouth 
was open, one could see his tongue work- 
ing! Why had she not noticed that great 
mouth before? ’Twas the biggest in all 
Florence. O ! why had he come ? She was 
frightened, remorseful, a child again, with a 
trembling pathetic mouth and shrinking 
limbs. And then her heart began to beat 
under her slim fingers. She pressed them 
down into her flesh to stay those great mas- 
terful throbs. A tear gathered in her eye; 
larger and larger it grew, and then fell. A 
shining drop rested on the round of her 


39 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


cheek and rolled slowly down her chin to 
her protecting hand, and lay there half hid- 
den, shining like a rain-drop between two 
curving petals of a rose. 

It was just at that moment the painter 
looked up from his work and shook his bush 
of hair back. Something in his sketch had 
displeased him ; he looked up frowning, 
with a brush between his teeth. When he 
saw the tear-stained, distressful, beautiful 
face it had a strange effect upon him. He 
dropped nerveless like a wounded man, to 
his knees, and covered his eyes with his 
hands. “Ah Madonna ! for the pity of 
heaven forgive me! forgive me! I have 
sinned, I have done thee fearful wrong; I, 
who still dare to love thee.” He uncovered 
his face and looked up radiant: his own 
words had inspired him. “Yes,” he went 
on, with a steadfast smile, “I, Sandro, the 


40 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


painter, the poor devil of a painter, have 
seen thee and I dare to love !” His triumph 
was short-lived. Simonetta had grown 
deadly white, her eyes burned, she had for- 

f 

gotten herself. She was tall and slender as 
a lily, and she rose, shaking, to her height. 

“Thou presumest strangely,'^ she said, in 
a slow still voice, ‘'Go ! Go in peace 

She was conqueror. In her calm scorn, • 
she was like a young immortal, some cold 
victorious Cynthia whose chastity had been 
flouted. Sandro was pale too : he said noth- 
ing and did not look at her again. She 
stood quivering with excitement, watching 
him with the same intent alertness as he 
rolled up his paper and crammed his brushes 
and pencils into the breast of his jacket. 
She watched him still as he backed out of 
the room and disappeared through the cur- 
tains of the archway. She listened to his 


41 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


footsteps along the corridor, down the stair. 
She was alone in the silence of the sunny 
room. Her first thought was for her cloak ; 
she snatched it up and veiled herself shiver- 
ing as she looked fearfully round the walls. 
And then she flung herself on the piled 
cushions before the window and sobbed 
piteously, like an abandoned child. 

The sun slanted in between the golden 
leaves and tendrils and played in the tangle 
of her hair. . . , 


III 

At ten o’clock on the morning of April 
the twenty-sixth, a great bell began to toll ; 
two beats heavy and slow, and then silence, 
while the air echoed the reverberation. 


4Z 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


moaning. Sandro, in shirt and breeches, 
with bare feet spread broad, was at work 
in his garret on the old bridge. He stayed 
his hand as the strong tone struck, bent his 
head and said a prayer : ‘'Miserere ei, Dom- 
ine ; requiem eternam dona, Domiine the 
words came out of due order as if he was 
very conscious of their import. Then he 
went on. And the great bell went on ; two 
beats together, and then silence. It seemed 
to gather solemnity and a heavier message 
as he painted. Through the open window 
a keen draught of air blew in with dust and 
a scrap of shaving from the Lung’ Arno 
down below ; it circled round his workshop, 
fluttering the sketches and rags pinned to 
the walls. He looked out on a bleak land- 
scape — San Miniato in heavy shade, and the 
white houses by the river staring like dead 
faces. A strong breeze was abroad; it 


43 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


whipped the brown water and raised little 
curling billows, ragged and white at the 
edges, and tossed about snaps of surf. It 
was cold. Sandro shivered as he shut to his 
casement; and the stiffening gale rattled at 
it fitfully. Once again it thrust it open, 
bringing wild work among the litter in the 
room. He made fast with the rain driving 
in his face. And above the howling of the 
squall he heard the sound of the great bell, 
steady and unmoved as if too full of its mes- 
sage to be put aside. Yet it was coming to 
him athwart the wind. 

Sandro stood at his casement and looked 
at the weather — beating rain and yeasty 
water. He counted, rather nervously, the 
pulses between each pair of the bell’s deep 
tones. He was impressionable to circum- 
stances, and the coincidence of storm and 
passing-bell awed him. . . . ‘‘Either the 


44 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

God of Nature suffers or the fabric of the 
world is breaking;” — he remembered a 
scrap of talk wafted towards him (as he 
stood in attendance) from some humanist 
at Lorenzo’s table only yesterday, above the 
light laughter and snatches of song. That 
breakfast party at the Camaldoli yesterday ! 
What a contrast — the even spring weather 
with the sun in a cloudless sky, and now this 
icy dead morning with its battle of wind 
and bell, fighting, he thought, — over the 
failing breath of some strong man. Man! 
God, more like. “The God of Nature suf- 
fers,” be murmured as he turned to his 
work. . . . 

Simonetta had not been there yesterday. 
He had not seen her, indeed, since that 
nameless day when she had first transported 
him with the radiance of her bare beauty 
and then struck him down with a level gaze 


45 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


from steel-cold eyes. And he had de- 
serv^ed it, he had — she had said — “presumed 
strangely.” Three more words only had 
she uttered and he had slunk out from her 
presence like a dog. What a Goddess ! 
Venus Urania! So she, too, might have 
ravished a worshipper as he prayed, and, 
after, slain him for a careless word. Cruel ? 
No, but a Goddess. Beauty had no laws; 
she was above them. Agnolo himself had 
said it, from Plato. . . . Holy Michael 1 
What a blast! Black and! desperate wea- 
ther. . . . “Either the God of Nature suf- 
fers.” . . . God shield all Christian souls 
on such a day ! . . . 

One came and told him Simonetta Ves- 
pucci was dead. Some fever had torn at her 
and raced through all her limbs, licking up 
her life as it passed. No one had known 
of it — it was so swift ! But there had just 


46 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


been time to fetch a priest; Fra IMatteo, 
they said, from the Carmine, had shrived 
her (’twas a bootless task, God knew, for 
the child had babbled so, her wits wandered, 
look you), and then he had performed the 
last ofiice. One had fled to tell the Medici. 
Giuliano was wild with grief ; ’twas as if he 
had killed her instead of the Spring-ague — 
but, then, people said he loved her well ! 
And our Lorenzo had bid them swing the 
great bell of the Duomo — Sandro had heard 
it perhaps? — and there was to be a public 
procession, and a Requiem sung at Santa 
Croce before they took her back to Genoa 
to lie with her fathers. Eh ! Bacchus > She 
was fair and Giuliano had loved her well. 
’Twas natural enough then. So the gossip 
ran out to tell his news to more attentive 
ears, and Sandro stood in his place, inton- 
ing softly '‘Te Deum Laudamus.” 


47 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

He understood it all. There had been a 
dark and awful strife — earth shuddering as 
the black shadow of death swept by. 
Through tears now the sun beamed broad 
over the gentle city where she lay lapped 
in her mossy hills. “Lux eterna lucet ei,” 
he said with a steady smile ; “atque lucebit/’ 
he added after a pause. He had been paint- 
ing that day an agonizing Christ, red and 
languid, crowned with thorns. Some of 
his own torment seems to have entered it, 
for, looking at it now, we see, first of all, 
wild eyeballs staring with the mad earnest- 
ness, the purposeless intensity of one seized 
or “possessed.’' He put the panel away and 
looked about for something else, the sketch 
he had made of Simonetta on that last day. 
When he ;had found it, he rolled it straight 
and set it on his easel. Tt was not the first 
charcoal study he had made from life, but 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


a brush drawing on dark paper, done in 
sepia-wash and the lights in white lead. He 
stood looking into it with his hands clasped. 
About half a braccia high, faint and shad- 
owy in the pale tint he had used, he saw her 
there victim rather than Goddess. Stand- 
ing timidly and wistfully, shrinking rather, 
veiling herself, maiden-like, with her hands 
and hair, with lips trembling and dewy eyes, 
she seemed to him now an immortal who 
must needs suffer for some great end; live 
and suffer and die; live again, and suffer 
and die. It was a doom perpetual like 
Demeter’s, to bear, to nurture, to lose and to 
find her Persephone. She had stood there 
immaculate and apprehensive, a wistful 
victim. Three days before he had seen her 
thus ; and now she was dead. He would see 
her no more. 


49 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

Ah!. Yes, once more he would see her. 

They carried dead Simonetta through the 
streets of Florence with her pale face un- 
covered and a crown of myrtle in her hair. 
People thronging there held their breath, 
or wept to see such still loveliness ; and her 
poor parted lips wore a patient little smile, 
and her eyelids were pale violet and lay 
heavy to her cheek. White, like a bride, 
with a nosegay of orange-blossom and 
syringa at her throat, she lay there on her 
bed with lightly folded hands and the 
strange aloofness and preoccupation all the 
dead have. Only her hair burned about her 
like a molten copper; and the wreath of 
myrtle leaves ran forward to her brows and 
leapt beyond them into a tongue. 

The great procession swept forward ; 
black brothers of Misericordia, shrouded 


50 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


and awful, bore the bed or stalked before 
it with torches that guttered and flared 
sootily in the dancing light of day. They 
held the pick of Florence, those scowling 
shrouds — Giuliano and Lorenzo, Pazzi, 
Tornabuoni, Soderini or Pulci ; and behind, 
old Cattaneo, battered with storms, walked 
heavily, swinging his long arms and looking 
into the day’s face as if he would try an- 
other fall with Death yet. Priests and acol- 
ytes, tapers, banners, vestments and a great 
silver Crucifix, they drifted by, chanting the 
dirge for Simonetta; and she, as if for a 
sacrifice, lifted up on her silken bed, lay 
couched like a white flower edged color of 
flame. . . . 

. . . Santa Croce, the great church, 
stretched forward beyond her into distances 
of grey mist and cold spaces of light. Its 
bare vastness was damp like a vault. And 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, 
apart, with the half-smile, as it seemed, of 
some secret mirth. Round her the great 
candles smoked and flickered, and mass was 
sung at the High Altar for her soul’s repose. 
Sandro stood alone facing the shining altar 
but looking fixedly at Simonetta on her 
couch. He was white and dry — parched 
lips and eyes that ached and smarted. Was 
this the end ? Was it possible, my God ! 
that the transparent, unearthly thing lying 
there so prone and pale was dead? Had 
such loveliness aught to do with life or 
death ? Ah ! sweet lady, dear heart, how 
tired she was, how deadly tired! From 
where he stood he could see with intolerable 
anguish the sombre rings round her eyes 
and the violet shadows on the lids, her fold- 
ed hands and the straight, meek line to her 
feet. And her poor wan face with its wist- 


52 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


ful, pitiful little smile was turned half aside 
on the delicate throat, as if in a last appeal : 
“Leave me now, O Florentines, to my 
rest. I have given you all I had: ask no 
more. I was a young girl, a child ; too young 
for your eager strivings. You have killed 
me with your play; let me be now, let me 
sleep!” Poor child! Poor child! Sandro 
was on his knees with his face pressed 
against the pulpit and tears running through 
his fingers as he prayed. . . . 

As he had seen her, so he painted. As at 
the beginning of life in a cold world, pas- 
sively meeting the long trouble of it, he 
painted her a rapt Presence floating evenly 
to cur earth. A grey, translucent sea laps 
silently upon a little creek and, in the hush 
of a still dawn, the myrtles and sedges on 
the water’s brim are quiet. It is a dream 
in half tones that he gives us, grey and 


53 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


green and steely blue; and just that, and 
some homely magic of his own, hint the 
commerce of another world with man’s dis- 
carded domain. Men and women are 
asleep, and as in an early walk you may 
startle the hares at their play, or see the 
creatures of the darkness — owls and night 
hawks and heavy moths — flit with fantastic 
purpose over the familiar scene, so here it 
comes upon you suddenly that you have 
surprised Nature’s self at her mysteries ; 
you are let into the secret ; you have caught 
the spirit of the April woodland as she 
glides over the pasture to the copse. And 
that, indeed, was Sandro’s fortune. He 
caught her in just such a propitious hour. 
He saw the sweet wild thing, pure and un- 
defiled by touch of earth ; caught her in that 
pregnant pause of time ere she had lighted. 
Another moment and a buxom nymph of 


54 


QUATTROCENTISTERIA 


the grove would fold her in a rosy mantle, 
colored as the earliest wcod-anemones are. 
She would vanish, we know, into the daf- 
fodils or a bank of violets. And you might 
tell her presence there, or in the rustle of 
the myrtles, or coo of doves mating in the 
pines; you might feel her genius in the 
scent of the earth or the kiss of the West 
wind; but you could only see her in mid- 
April, and you should look for her over the 
sea- She always comes with the first 
warmth of the year. 

But daily, before he painted, Sandro knelt 
in a dark chapel in Santa Croce, while a 
blue-chinned priest said mass for the repose 
of Simonetta’s soul. 


LoFC. 


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